First of all the Jewish Press no longer calls the column “The Agunah Chronicles,” but rather, “Chronicles of Crisis,” and has done so for a long time, now. They do not focus on Agunos, but rather on all aspects of social problems in the Jewish Community.
Second,re: “It could be because if a woman gets really unreasonable, there is always the Hetter Mey’a Rabbanim option.”
It is usually the other way around. I have friends who were held up for GET ransom. That is a disgrace that any man who calls himself frum should disobey a Mitzvas Asai D’Oraisah, to give his wife a GET, by trying to get money out of her, when HE is the one responsible to give her the value stipulated in the Kesubah.